Some creative groups decided to throw an awesome event, First Warm Night. Hundreds of random folks gathered together, invading the city. runstaverun invited me along for the adventure. We went through a cult, grabbed some mini-cheesesteaks, then joined the troops.

We clogged sidewalks in Manhattan, took over the subway, and marched our way down Red Hook. I've never seen multiple marching bands parade through the subway, and probably never will. Passerby really didn't know what to make of things. We tromped around parks, passing around soccer matches, and were escorted about by vastly outnumbered police. Throughout the night we handed out plastic lizards and rabbits to people.

Eventually we made it to a pier after going down the length of Beard Street. While there was a Capoeira demonstration on the end of the pier, a large truck put on a show at the end of the street. Eventually the police shut things down, and we made our way out of there. We had a journey through the projects with a lost band, hung out at a bar packed with those who found their way there, found our way back, hit a number of places (redchef's cart (he thought only his father in law read his blog), periol's favorite bar, and a fries place), and got home.

EDIT: I was going to type up a more detailed description, but I now see that runstaverun did a great write-up full of links. So go read it here. Anyway, as I said, a wonderful and surreal night. The look on a security guard as a pack of maybe a thousand crazy people from little kids to the elderly marched past the warehouse he was guarding was awesome, and it was just one of a huge number of similar moments. The truck blasting Beastie Boys, little cart made into a boom box, and abanonded chair rolled all the way around Red Hook were all awesome. Anyway, yeah, go read his journal entry.

EDIT 2: See runstaverun and I here, and just me near the back of this picture. Here is the woman who was taking her goldfish for a walk who proposed a toast to the crowd, sitting on the chair that was pushed all over Brooklyn from when we first got off the subway.